Lotsa cheese
This past year has seen me take great leaps and bounds in the wonderful world of cheese. It all started with the creation of a “master of food” for Slow Food France. I must admit I kinda approached this one reaaaallly dragging my boots in the Haute Provence dust…I was pretty skeptical that the democratization of the “case for taste” would be furthered by a course destined to fines gueules and other gourmets. But I trudged on (more like, I was given no real choice), and so the adventure began with what appeared to be an obvious choice of theme: cheese. Obvious, yes. Uncomplicated…I won’t quite concede. Cheese does come slightly charged in French gastronomical circles…on ne badine pas avec le pays des 400 fromages! On the other hand, it doesn’t quite carry the enormous weight of another venerable French grande dame, wine.
In fact, the choice to begin with a course on cheese turned out to be a good one. It offered the depth and variety needed to create an interesting and rich course content. It also gave me the chance to explore a world I only knew superficially. I gladly dove right in and in the process, soaked up as much information as I could. I spoke to “experts”, found out how cheese is made, discovered the great variety of goat cheeses in Haute Provence, went to the Slow Food event in Bra, Cheese, and saw all kinds of strange and interesting variations on curdling. One of the great innovations demonstrated at Cheese was mozzarella di…capra…yes, you read it right: mozzarella made with goat milk! I was one of the lucky ones who tried it (they ran out pretty quickly)…I can’t say I am a huge fan. I still like the milkiness of the buffala cheese, but it was interesting, even if only for the fact that they were able to make this type of cheese out of goat’s milk. I also attended a taste workshop on different methods of ageing cheeses, led by a big name in the business, Hansi Baumgartner. He hails from Alto-Adige, the part of Italy which is quite cosy with Austria, as his name suggests. At De Gust he selects and ages all sorts of fine cheeses from small producers. During this particular workshop, he guided us through a tasting of such specialties as a blue cheese aged in rhum and covered in cocoa bean bits. It was very interesting.
All this unexpected immersion into the cheese world has now opened up some interesting doors. Funny, really, especially when you consider that I was against the idea of working on the Slow Food course in the first place. I guess life throws you what you need. Now I am putting this newly acquired knowledge to good use…more info to come on this. For now, I am satisfying my hunger for all things cheesy with countless new discoveries from Québec. What variety! Check out La route des fromages du Québec and Fromages de Pays for more info!
